Please help me find this book I borrowed from the library in 1990!

[FantasticButtocks]

Not much to go on, sorry...
It had a brightish blue cover.
No idea of author or title, but either the husband or the baby was called Stephen/Steven, think it might actually have been the baby. Don't think the marriage was great. The mother suffers with intense loneliness and depression pnd after the birth, husband not very supportive or maybe doesn't understand... but eventually she finds something that interests her, can't remember what, maybe she starts to study, and starts to feel more human again. She starts going out and about with the pram, and also getting into her subject, she sometimes reads on a bench in the park. One day when she's doing this, very absorbed, the unthinkable happens and her child drowns in the pond.
She blames herself. Her husband blames her.

Very grim and sad, I read it when I'd just given birth to my first child
I've looked for it often, without success and I'd be so grateful if anyone recognises it.
Thanks

Definitely not an aga saga, bit more literary...

Not third child. Only child

Not that one, I'm almost certain she only had the one child!

If you don’t get any joy here, @FantasticButtocks, try the forums on Abebooks - they are excellent at tracking down books from the smallest clues.

I'm no help sorry but i really hope you find this book. I had a similar struggle to find a film I had watched roughly the same time 1990ish. I also posted on mumsnet for help and I did find the film. it was an Australian film just released on video In the UK. I've been unable to rewatch the film as its no longer available anywhere but I did find a big write up about it online. was good to finally find it. Good luck with your search.

Will do, thank you 😊

What was the film?

Oh how I wish I had never clicked on this thread. 🙄

Aww! Your OP has made me remember reading the very first call the midwife just after I had, had my first. I was so sad reading about the women who had to go to the work house and was split up from her children and they all died one by one. I was howling reading her story. So sad. I know someone who was a child in the work house and on a Sunday they would be lined up to wave at their mother's and the mothers would be lined up in their own building to wave and that was the only time they saw each other all week. Horrific. Hope you find your book OP.

Some more details may come back to you. I wanted to find a book I read in the 90s and took ages but more retails started drifting to the top of my memory and I eventually found it.

mybookcave.com/how-to-find-a-book-when-you-dont-know-the-title-or-author/

may help OP

Annie Murray - Mother & Child? Not sure if this has been suggested. I hope you find it OP.

Sorry, scrap that it's saying the release date was in the 2000's, I thought it had been released in the 90s and re-released in 2000s. Also the child is called Paul. Sorry. Hope you find it though.

Was it Danielle Steel?

You will come back & tell us if you find it, won't you?

I am so invested. Whatever this book is, when you finally find it, I am sure I’ll be one
of many compelled to track it down after this thread!

Goodreads has a whole section dedicated to finding such things I worked in a library for years and we used the resources it's mentions www.goodreads.com/group/show/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

No

Of course!

Thanks, I will try that

Now I want to know what this miserable book is too.

keep an open mind about, the details you remember may not be 100% correct, but I really hope you find it!!

No help unfortunately but I'm invested as I want to find the book!

This is so funny I googled and it linked to this thread hahah

This is also similar to the opening scenario for James Herberts the Secrets of Crickley Hall but that was published later.

So do I.! Can't think of anything.
Could it be one of an anthology of short stories?